Kharkov court delays new trial versus Timoshenko over illness

Under this criminal case Timoshenko is accused of abuse of power at the post of the chief executive of the United Energy Systems of Ukraine Corporation

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KHARKOV, May 21 (Itar-Tass) — The Kievsky District Court of Kharkov ruled to delay to June 25 the merit court proceedings in a new criminal case versus former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko over her illness on Monday. Judge Konstantin Sadovsky has made the ruling after the arguments of the prosecutor and the lawyers.

Under this criminal case Timoshenko is accused of abuse of power at the post of the chief executive of the United Energy Systems of Ukraine Corporation in the middle of the nineties.

In this new criminal case Timoshenko faced three charges, particularly the misappropriation of budgetary resources and an attempt at misappropriating the state budgetary resources to the tune of 25 million hryvni (over three million dollars), tax evasion of the United Energy Systems of Ukraine at a total of four million hryvni (500,000 dollars), the use of a charge card of a foreign company, from the account of which Timoshenko spent about one million dollars for expenses in expensive hotels and restaurants without paying the taxes from this sum. Timoshenko headed the United Energy Systems of Ukraine, which was a natural gas importer in 1995-1997.

The international medical committee has arrived at a conclusion before that Timoshenko should continue her treatment according to a schedule, which German doctor Lutz Harms developed. So, she will not be able to participate in a court session on May 21. The prosecutor also requested for the postponement of the court session. Prosecutor Viktor Lobach referred to the opinion of the medical committee, which “recommended not to interrupt the rehabilitation and opposed the transportation of the defendant from the Kharkov hospital to the court.”

On October 11, 2011, the Pechorsky District Court of Kiev sentenced the former premier to seven years in prison for abuse of power in the signing of the gas agreements with Russia in January 2009. Timoshenko appeals the guilty verdict. From the end of December in 2011 the former prime minister serves the sentence at the Kachanovskaya penitentiary in Kharkov, where she was brought to the hospital of the Ukrainian Railways on May 9.